ebook img

Feminist Periodicals and Daily Life: Women and Modernity in British Culture PDF

319 Pages·2017·4.572 MB·English
Save to my drive
Quick download
Download
Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.

Preview Feminist Periodicals and Daily Life: Women and Modernity in British Culture

BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNNNNNNNNN WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN AAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD MMMMMMMMMMMMMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODDDDDDDDDDDDDDEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY IIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN BBBBBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCUUUUUUUUUUUUUUULLLLLLLLLLLTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Feminist Periodicals and Daily Life Barbara Green Feminist Periodicals and Daily Life Women and Modernity in British Culture Barbara Green Department of English University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN, USA ISBN 978-3-319-63277-3 ISBN 978-3-319-63278-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-63278-0 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017947724 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration © Sharpstock / Alamy Stock Photo Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland A cknowledgements This book has taken a long time to write, and has accumulated many debts along the way. I’m delighted to have the opportunity to acknowl- edge a few of them here. I am thankful for the support of Notre Dame English Department Chairs John Sitter, Valerie Sayers, Stephen Fallon, and Jesse Lander and for the support of the College of Arts and Letters at the University of Notre Dame for granting me the time in which to write. The Institute for Scholarship in the Arts at Notre Dame subsidized a crucial research trip. In London, the staff of the Women’s Library (now housed at the London School of Economics) as well as the staff of the British Library provided vital aid in locating materials. At Notre Dame, the generous staff of the Hesburgh Library can never be thanked enough for all of their efforts on my behalf: members of the microtext depart- ment worked tirelessly to make materials available to me, and Daniel Johnson, English Literature and Digital Humanities Librarian, tracked down elusive materials and dispatched seemingly intractable problems with speed and efficiency. I am especially thankful to have worked closely with and learned from scholars whose innovative work in feminist print culture studies has inspired my own and provided goals to aim for (though, perhaps, not quite to reach). In their work, Catherine Clay, Lucy Delap, Maria DiCenzo, Fiona Hackney, and Carey Snyder demonstrated new ways of considering the feminist periodical archive and have provided encourage- ment and suggested important resources along the way. Collaborating with Catherine Clay, Maria DiCenzo, and Fiona Hackney on a volume v vi ACkNOWLEDGEMENTS devoted to women’s periodical culture has been a joy and placed me in the middle of stimulating conversations about the field. Catherine Clay and Stella Deen provided thoughtful responses to my discussion of Delafield’s middlebrow writing. Working with Sean Latham and Mark Morrisson for a few years at the Journal of Modern Periodical Studies pro- vided the best possible education in the field as it began to firm up its contours. My new role as co-editor of the journal involves collaborating closely with Patrick Collier, whose scholarship continually galvanizes the field and sharpened my sense of periodical spaces. Holly Laird provided sustained support and access to a lively community of scholars working on modern women’s writing. I was fortunate to meet Ann Ardis early in my career, and without her mentorship this work most likely would not have happened: she provided key support, and in her periodical stud- ies scholarship asked the crucial questions that have shaped my own. I place myself in a long line of scholars who are in her debt. Ann Ardis and Patrick Collier created stimulating spaces for the exchange of new work in periodical studies in two seminars held at the University of Delaware. Most importantly, this book began as an idea when I joined forces with Mary Chapman on a shared project related to suffrage culture, and it grew up alongside her brilliant study of American suffrage print cul- ture. Her book suggested just what might be possible, and I’m deeply grateful for her friendship and words of advice along the way. Deepest thanks go to Pam Wojcik, who provided key guidance by reading every chapter of this book and provided endless encouragement and support. I learned more than I can say about writing from these encounters, and I am warmed to see the many ways in which my book is better because of her suggestions. Any deficits are, of course, entirely my own. Our conver- sations about the everyday both as a theory and as a deeply felt practice have been a delight through the years and I’m thankful for her friendship. Scholarly endeavors and the routines and habits of teaching are never that far apart. Opportunities to team-teach with Christina Wolbrecht, Pam Wojcik, Liz Evans, and Patrick Collier at various stages of this pro- ject’s development sharpened my sense of the relationship of a feminist everyday to discussions of modernity as well as teaching me a great deal about pedagogy. The chance to read emerging work by Tommy Davis, Denise Ayo, Lauren Rich, and Melissa McCoul when they were in the graduate program at Notre Dame gave me new insights into the workings of the everyday, women’s print culture, the significance of food culture, ACkNOWLEDGEMENTS vii and representations of children’s play in the modern period. I’m grateful for that early opportunity to see their ideas as they were developing. A version of Chap. 2 was published as “Feminist Things” in Transatlantic Print Culture, 1880–1940: Emerging Media, Emerging Modernisms, edited by Ann Ardis and Pat Collier, and I thank Palgrave Macmillan Press for permission to reprint it here within the con- text of an expanded chapter. A version of Chapter Four was published as “Complaints of Everyday Life: Feminist Periodical Culture and Correspondence Columns in the Woman Worker and the Freewoman” in the journal Modernism/modernity and I thank Johns Hopkins University Press for permission to republish it here as well as the anonymous reviewers who provided key recommendations. I’m thankful for per- mission granted by the Board of the British Library to publish images from the pages of the socialist paper the Clarion. Images of suffragettes at work that illustrate Chapter One are courtesy of Alamy. My edi- tors at Palgrave, Brigitte Shull, Ryan Jenkins, Paloma Yannakakis, Allie Bochicchio, and Emily Janakiram, were endlessly helpful throughout the process of publication; I’m deeply appreciative of their guidance and the recommendations of the manuscript’s reviewer. Jay and Jonah Dobrutsky, fellow travellers in the everyday, provided many deep pleasures of the ordinary as well as supplying extraordinary moments of delight during the period this book was taking shape. c ontents 1 The Feminist Everyday, Periodicals and Daily Life 1 2 Feminist Things: Votes for Women and the Circulation of Emotion 41 3 Feminist Spaces and Women’s Pages: Rebecca West and Socialist Periodicals 89 4 Complaints of Everyday Life: Feminist Periodical Culture and Correspondence Columns in the Woman Worker, Women Folk, and the Freewoman 147 5 “What to Eat in War Time”: Thrift and the Great War 181 6 Distraction and Daydream, Rhythm and Repetition, in Time and Tide and E. M. Delafield’s “Diary of a Provincial Lady” 241 7 Conclusion: Reading for the Middle of the Everyday 279 Bibliography 289 Index 307 ix l f ist of igures Fig. 1.1 Miss kelley Sells Votes for Women 16 Fig. 1.2 Packing Votes for Women at the Women’s Press 25 Fig. 3.1 “Our Woman’s Letter” 112 Fig. 3.2 “Our Woman’s Letter” 113 Fig. 3.3 “Our Woman’s Letter” 114 Fig. 3.4 “Our Woman’s Letter: The Quiet Woman” 115 Fig. 5.1 Alfred Pearse [A Patriot] “The Two Wars” 187 Fig. 5.2 Alfred Pearse, [A Patriot] “Thrift-For Soldier’s Wives” 216 Fig. 5.3 Alfred Pearse, [A Patriot] “Equal Lunches for Men & Women” 218 Fig. 5.4 Alfred Pearse, [A Patriot] “His Influence” 222 xi CHAPTER 1 The Feminist Everyday, Periodicals and Daily Life The October 1909 issue of the British suffrage paper, the Suffragist (which was actually the only issue of this short-lived paper) included a short fiction by suffragist Rose Lamartine Yates entitled “Infection.”1 This light piece described an “epidemic” of the colors of the militant suffrage organization, the Women’s Social and Political Union—purple, white, and green. A family finds itself confronted at every turn by these fashionable colors when they attempt to buy a variety of commodities— invitations, hats, tea, vests, socks, and other items. At each encounter, the family discovers that the militant suffrage colors are considered to be “telling,” “the thing.”2 The suffrage colors have saturated the market- place and seem to organize the family’s dealings with every public insti- tution in reach—from the train to the Hippodrome. The narrator warns that “[y]ou cannot be too careful if you would avoid this [epidemic]. It is far more prevalent than people think, and the germs can be con- veyed not only by articles of clothing, but by such innocent mediums as printer’s ink.”3 Within this context, the lines between ordinary activity and political activity, between unwitting affiliation and deliberate state- ment of political membership, become blurred. “A man doesn’t choose his [vest] linings[,]” the narrator concludes, “Does he always his political views?”4 By the end of the story, living within an environment saturated with suffrage branding has done its work and the family has been con- verted to the cause of votes for women. Within “Infection,” activism is a matter of ordinary life and creeps up on one through a kind of conta- gion rather than through deliberate intention or an epiphanic awakening. © The Author(s) 2017 1 B. Green, Feminist Periodicals and Daily Life, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-63278-0_1

See more

The list of books you might like

Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.